Bugged Game? Get a Refund

[Tharic-Nar]

Bugs and glitches in video games are nothing new, but lately it seems as if more and more games are being released without the proper amount of quality assurance. Whether the developer is rushing the game to market to cash in on a prime shopping season or if the are under another type deadline is of no concern to the consumer. They simply want the best product for their hard earned dollars.

You can read the rest of our post and discuss here.

 

[Rob Williams]

I think gamers should have the right to a refund if the game is "unplayable". After all, we wouldn't put up with a car that stops dead in the street, or a television that can't turn channels. Games should be no different. The fact that gamers keep putting up with it is what keeps it happening. These companies need to learn that games shouldn't be rushed, because if it's a good game, having it non-buggy is appreciated.

 

[OriginalJoeCool]

I don't mind games that will run on future versions of Windows either. There are standards to follow....

 

[Optix]

I was in Future Shop doing some Christmas shopping back in November and I came across a game that had obviously been returned. On the case someone had written "Requires Windows Vista". I can't remember what game it was but I nearly died laughing.

 

[Rob Williams]

I was in Future Shop doing some Christmas shopping back in November and I came across a game that had obviously been returned. On the case someone had written "Requires Windows Vista". I can't remember what game it was but I nearly died laughing.

That's the kind of problem people running a 10-year-old OS can come to expect!

 

[Doomsday]

I was in Future Shop doing some Christmas shopping back in November and I came across a game that had obviously been returned. On the case someone had written "Requires Windows Vista". I can't remember what game it was but I nearly died laughing.

Rofl!!

 

[Tharic-Nar]

Can't put a PS3 game in a PS2 or One and expect it to work... same goes for PCs... the problem is that there is no 'fixed generation' separation with PCs, it's a totally organic system. Just because you have Blu-Ray and a quad core, doesn't mean you can play games. You can have a Pentium 4 and a CD drive and still play the latest games (at a diminished capacity). It's a culture issue I guess.

As for refunds on broken games.... I'm all for it, especially when DRM is the cause of the break... Lost internet connection, installed the game one too many times... bought the game 3 years ago and decide to install it again, but can't because the activation server is down... How about a game that removes all your save points if you die (yes, it really did happen)... how about, if the game crashes, it corrupts your save (very common). So why can't you return the game? Because you've read the serial number or copied the disc...

The problem is 'Patches'. While patches and internet connections exist, games will be released in a half ass'd state and fixed on the fly after the large cash injection... or not, because the game was so bugged no one bought it.

But I have to ask the question... why are there so many bugs in the games in the first place? Poor design, bad programmers and clueless middle-management. So just like any other business... Look at all the games and look at all the problems, how many times across different games with the same team, do certain bugs reappear.

Bah, who am I to complain, just an armchair critic .

 

[Optix]

Bah, who am I to complain, just an armchair critic .

You have an Internet connection and can type, which entitles you to share your opinion on everything from apples to zebras and everything in between, regardless of whether you are right or wrong.

 

[Glider]

But I have to ask the question... why are there so many bugs in the games in the first place? Poor design, bad programmers and clueless middle-management. So just like any other business... Look at all the games and look at all the problems, how many times across different games with the same team, do certain bugs reappear.

Being a software QA Engineer, I can answer this one... Release cycles, which relates to sheer $$$

The faster the codebase goes out the door, the faster it starts making money. And in this the philosophy of the company shows.

My company does a mayor release once a year, and of that 1 year cycle, 25% is spent designing the code and 100% is spent testing (in parallel). The remaining 75% (for design) is spent fixing bugs. Take the testing part out of the equation and your release cycle goes up by a factor 4. Also, the testing department is about 2-3times the size as the design one... Think about the required resources... But, we (and our customers) value quality much higher than our competition.

Delivering quality code does not (directly) yield profit. And since most games are a one time thing (not that many get a, let alone multiple, successors), there is no point in delivering quality. Just pump out crap, patch some mayor annoyances for the end users and then move on to the next project.

Drop in a lot of resources to get things going and get some stable code, release it, and then get a handful of designers to patch up the mess, while the rest works on the next thing.

 

[Tharic-Nar]

I get it drilled into me all the time about good design, testing code while you write it. Writing the test procedures while you write the code. Devs should test their own code... and PROPER DOCUMENTATION!!! Meeting the requirements, is a bug with the code or with the design... proper use of version control systems, and so on and so on. Lack of REAL quality assurance... preventing bugs from getting into the system in the first place, rather than testing and fixing them after the fact. The good old 20/80 rule, 20% of the work takes 80% of the time... management tends to like things to progress, so they go with the easy stuff, then the hard stuff bites them in the ass near the end of the project, so they have to break things to get other things to work.... just lack of proper design. Design should take most of the time, not testing... but as you said, for a single use project, why bother with all that design when you're going to dump the code base after 2 years...

I'm still largely clueless to the world of programming, but I have done my fair share of testing, all be it closed beta (and alpha) testing for games... long enough to know it is the most degrading part of the IT industry... Devs hate you for poking holes in their code, or for not properly documenting the bug, only to find out that you haven't been given the right version to test and the bug no longer exists. The community naively shouts out that the game hasn't been tested properly because of all these bugs... bugs that testers found and reported weeks (months) ago but the devs haven't been able to fix in time... But software testing and game testing are quite different... I know that much.

 

[Optix]

That's one thing that I love about MMO's for the most part. They aren't just a flash in the pan release but something that users continue to play and test inadvertantly simply by going through the content. Dev's usually have no choice but to work on the fixes or risk players dumping the game due to lack of support.

Lord Of The Rings Online had GREAT dev support...I miss it terribly...

 

[Glider]

I get it drilled into me all the time about good design, testing code while you write it. Writing the test procedures while you write the code. Devs should test their own code... and PROPER DOCUMENTATION!!! Meeting the requirements, is a bug with the code or with the design... proper use of version control systems, and so on and so on. Lack of REAL quality assurance... preventing bugs from getting into the system in the first place, rather than testing and fixing them after the fact. The good old 20/80 rule, 20% of the work takes 80% of the time... management tends to like things to progress, so they go with the easy stuff, then the hard stuff bites them in the ass near the end of the project, so they have to break things to get other things to work.... just lack of proper design. Design should take most of the time, not testing... but as you said, for a single use project, why bother with all that design when you're going to dump the code base after 2 years...

Good design goes nowhere when you are dealing with a 10 year old codebase consisting over 19M lines (without the comments) in over 2000 files.

On small projects devs can test their stuff, on huge OS's (like ours) the interactions between all the modules is just impossible for a dev to test. A dev writes module tests as they go (to test their functions), but that is just 1% of the work... Every time a feature gets added, the interactions double. With over 1000 features, you can imagine the workload

I'm still largely clueless to the world of programming, but I have done my fair share of testing, all be it closed beta (and alpha) testing for games... long enough to know it is the most degrading part of the IT industry... Devs hate you for poking holes in their code, or for not properly documenting the bug, only to find out that you haven't been given the right version to test and the bug no longer exists. The community naively shouts out that the game hasn't been tested properly because of all these bugs... bugs that testers found and reported weeks (months) ago but the devs haven't been able to fix in time... But software testing and game testing are quite different... I know that much.

That isn't the case in our department (luckily!). We have a great system of tracking defects and design really appreciates our work, because if we wouldn't find the bugs, our clients will. At least we put effort in working on a solutions instead of just reporting something went wrong. Providing a dev with a short test that triggers a specific bug is the best service a tester can provide

 

[Kougar]

So why can't you return the game? Because you've read the serial number or copied the disc...

Hence why we need a system that allows us to return the game, but allows the game dev to "delete" or null active keys for the returned game.

If that sounds like Steam, then that's because it probably is exactly what Steam is capable of doing. Unfortunately Valve doesn't have any sort of return policy, although I'm sure one could be devised...

The problem is 'Patches'. While patches and internet connections exist, games will be released in a half ass'd state and fixed on the fly after the large cash injection... or not, because the game was so bugged no one bought it.

I've probably said this so many times in this forum alone, but again Supreme Commander 2. The game was sent to publishing before the game was even completed... about 2GB of game content was on the disc and the missing ~2GB had to be downloaded and installed via Steam before the game would function. If they game hasn't even been completed yet when it hit store shelves, then how the hell can they have tested it properly? (In fact it was rife with game mechanic bugs, but because they occurred behind the scenes most people wouldn't notice them)

Because I bought my copy on Steam I never found out about this until later, but I was astonished. I already felt ripped off and the game was full of bugs, but knowing it hadn't even been completed answered why. I would've tried to get a refund from Valve rather than give Square Enix and Gas Powered Games my money for so blatantly ripping off people.

 

[Optix]

That was something that I had removed and wished I added back into the article - what do you do if you download a glitched/bugged game from a digital service like Steam? It's not like you can walk in and say you want to return a physical copy. Maybe they should offer a refund policy if you play less than X number of hours?

 

[OriginalJoeCool]

I've probably said this so many times in this forum alone, but again Supreme Commander 2. The game was sent to publishing before the game was even completed... about 2GB of game content was on the disc and the missing ~2GB had to be downloaded and installed via Steam before the game would function.

Holy cow! I'd never thought anything like that possible.